Is This a Motorcycle or an Ebike?

Key Takeaways

• The Yadea Trooper 01 is more like a mini motorcycle than an ebike, with its large headlight and bench-style seat.
• It is best suited for shorter riders and relies mostly on its throttle, as the pedaling experience is limited and not practical.
• Despite being difficult to pedal and having a higher price tag, the Trooper 01 offers a unique motorcycle-like appearance and a smooth motor performance that makes it enjoyable to ride using only the throttle.

Sporting a large headlight and a bench-style seat, the Yadea Trooper 01 looks less like an ebike and more like a mini Triumph Street Twin motorcycle. This is one of those bikes that's sure to turn heads, and it might have people take a double look when they think, "Why is this motorcycle riding in the bike lane?"

With its 750W motor, the Yadea Trooper 01 offers excellent power and smooth delivery, making even these steepest hills feel effortless. Despite its more sophisticated looks, this is a straightforward bike with its share of limitations. It is ultimately fun to ride—assuming you're a shorter rider or don't mind forgoing the pedaling.

Yadea Trooper 01

The Yadea Trooper 01 is a fun bike if you treat it like a motorcycle, rather than a bicycle. It's best suited for shorter riders, and even then, it's only worth considering if you don't mind relying mostly on its throttle. The pedaling experience is very limited and is mostly intended to help take some of the workload off the motor rather than provide any meaningful user input.

• Styling - Looks like a mini-motorcycle
• Very comfortable seat and ride
• Full suspension
• Smooth power
• Built-in undersea storage
• Good size for smaller riders
• Surprisingly compact
• Arrives mostly pre-assembled

• Very difficult and impractical to pedal
• At 5'10", this bike feels very cramped if I pedal
• No security features
• Rather basic info display
• No additional features to justify its higher price tag

A lot of the marketing with this bike would suggest that it's designed for off-roading. While its full suspension and 4-inch fat tires certainly make it capable of handling bumpy roads and some dirt paths, this would not be my first choice for trail riding.

Instead, I think the Trooper stands out for its comfort and convenience for street riding. The seat is super plush and the built-in under-seat storage is great for holding your smaller items like water bottles and bags. Despite its bolder styling, this bike is deceptively small. On the one hand, it makes it surprisingly compact, simple to get on or off, and easy to move around and lift on your own, something that can't be said about many other 750W ebike. On the flip side, at 5'10", I feel like an absolute giant riding on this thing.

The Trooper 01 provides an excellent ride and plenty of punch, but once I try to pedal, it's a different story.

Assembly Mostly Not Required

Aside from its styling, one of the best things about this bike is how simple the setup is. The Trooper arrives in a significantly larger box than most other ebikes that I've reviewed, which at first made me think that this bike was going to be absolutely massive. Opening up, however, I realized that this bike mainly came pre-assembled, which probably saved me at least 30 minutes or so of work.

After removing it from its box, all you'll need to do is attach the front handlebar, install the pedals (although you won't be using them much, if at all), plug in the battery, connect a few wires for its headlight and controller, pump up the tires, and leave it on the charger for about two hours to get to 100%. With a significantly larger box than most other brands, I can only imagine that this adds quite a bit to Yadea's shipping costs; but it's hard to say no to less work.

Inside the box, you'll also find the manual, though given how simple the installation process is, you probably won't even need to refer to it unless you're checking on its maintenance and troubleshooting sometime in the future. There are also keys for unlocking and removing the bike's battery, but it's worth noting that it isn't required to turn the bike on, so if security is a concern, keep that in mind. There is no tracking or alarm system.

Design and Features

Chances are, if you're considering this bike at all, it's because of its bold styling. At first glance, this can easily be mistaken for a motorcycle, albeit a small one. It's not until you notice its pedals and chain that you realize this is supposed to be a bicycle, despite it hardly riding like one. However, aside from its rather unique looks, the Trooper 01 may leave you feeling underwhelmed.

It features an under-frame built-in basket, which is wide and deep enough to fit a few compact items or a smaller bag.

For my smaller commutes, it was nice being able to fit my water bottle and a satchel with my iPad and a few accessories without needing to carry them on my back. That said, unless the items are wide enough to sit snugly in the basket, there will probably be lots of rattling there. There is no way to add a rear cargo rack or a front basket. Not that you'd want to with this bike, but it's worth mentioning.

Your controls are straightforward, with a thumb throttle lever on the right side and a rather basic, small monochrome display interface above it that allows you to change power modes. If Yadea wanted to lean into its motorcycle heritage, they should have gone for a twist throttle.

With higher-priced bikes, this is typically an area where we would find larger color LCDs for keeping track of your bike's stats. Given its $2000+ asking price, I feel like Yadea could've afforded a more premium option. Additionally, there aren't any smart features like smartphone integration, or something that I always look for in bikes now: turn signals.

On the left, there's a button for turning the headlight on, and below that a button for its horn, which, although small in my opinion, I find positioned in a great spot to reach easily with my left thumb without needing to let go from the handlebar. Right away, you'll also notice that this bike is missing gearing. Having tested a few other ebikes that also lacked this, I knew this would have its drawbacks, though I wasn't prepared for its true extent.

Surprisingly Smooth

The Trooper 01 is equipped with a 48V 750W rear hub motor that delivers 80Nm of high and three levels of pedal assist: Eco, Mid, and High. Power delivery is smooth and predictable.

It lacks the usual abruptness you find from a bike's motor either being on or off when you begin to pedal or engage the throttle. Yes, there's a delay in motor assistance before power assistance kicks in, and it's certainly not as responsive as a mid-drive motor, but it gets the job done with no significant hiccups. Even in its high-power mode, slamming the throttle results in a graceful acceleration rather than a neck-snapping jolt. If you're looking for a thrill that'll pin you to your seat, you might be out of luck, but it has the oomph to tackle steep hills and even smaller inclines with ease, which is what I look for in my commuter bike.

However, as I've continued to hint at, the dark cloud hanging over the Trooper 01's performance is its absence of gears. When combined with its nearly 80 lb curb weight, pedaling can be a real struggle here. If you want to try and start this bike from a dead stop by pedaling, you'll quickly realize the limitations. It's like being in top gear when you should be in first—only you can't shift down to make things easier. I often found myself relying on the throttle to kickstart movement before I'd begin to pedal. Alright, how about once you pick up speed? Using the throttle continues to be great, but unfortunately, things don't get much better with pedaling. More on that in a bit.

As for other features, it would have been a nice touch to have cruise control. As you probably won't be pedaling much here, you're mostly relying on the throttle to keep speed with the Trooper 01. Why not ease the strain on your thumb as well, right? The Trooper 01 is equipped with Tektro 160-millimeter rotor hydraulic disc brakes. They provide reliable stopping power. Testing them, I could come to a complete stop quickly even from speeds of up to 20 mph, without losing balance or traction.

Keeping the bike moving, we find a 48V 20Ah battery that supports 3A fast charging. While the theoretical pedal assist range is a generous 56 miles, with how much I had to rely solely on its throttle, I got a max range closer to 25 miles.

Not Meant for Pedaling

While it may not look much like one, this is still a bicycle, but only in the most technical sense. Most of the time, I found myself riding the Trooper 01 like a moped or motorcycle. The bike's pedal placement feels very cramped to me. With its fixed seat saddle height of just under 2.5 feet, they claim the bike is suited for riders between 160-180cm, or about 5'2" to 5'9". But it feels like Yadea has their sizing estimates off by about 2 or so inches. In fairness, I may be at the higher range of the recommended height for this bike, but I've even ridden kids' bikes that felt more ergonomic. If I could raise the seat 3–4 inches, I'd probably be in good shape, but that's not going to happen here. Instead of having the usual downforce power from my legs pushing the pedals below me, when riding the Trooper, my knees are positioned above my waist, dramatically reducing the output from my legs.

Combined with its lack of gearing, you're just setting yourself up for a tough time. Once the bike is in motion, pedaling with motor assistance is doable. It helps take some of the strain off the motor and extends your range slightly. However, after about 14 mph or so, there is absolutely no reason to pedal. At these speeds, the bike now feels like it needs a higher gear. The pedals spin so fast and freely that you're better off just using the throttle exclusively. This is a problem shorter riders will also encounter as it's a limitation of its single-gear hub.

To clarify, regardless of rider height, this bike is horrendous to pedal without any power assistance. I'd go as far as to say that I'd prefer to get off and walk this instead. Think I'm exaggerating? In one of my earlier test rides, I miscalculated the bike's remaining battery life, and it ended up dying on me with about a mile left before I got home. Mind you, my route is mostly flat roads, but I could not reliably keep the bike moving faster than 5 mph or so for more than a few minutes before tiring myself out. Not to mention, I looked like an absolute fool trying to get the bike moving again after stopping at intersections. It took me less than five minutes to decide I'd be better off doing the walk of shame for the rest of my trip back. As you can imagine, it left a sour taste in my mouth, but I came to an important conclusion.

Do You Want to Pedal?

If you're looking for a bike that feels like a bike, this is not the ride for you. So long as you treat the Trooper 01 as the motorcycle-like electric vehicle it's designed to emulate, things are great. I love the aesthetics, and find that it comes very close to giving the experience of a real motorcycle—but in a more compact and power-limited body. If you exclusively ride it using the throttle, forget about its pedals (yes, you'll take a massive hit to range), then you'll be treated to a torquey, comfortable, and effortless ride.

So what if we didn't call this an ebike? What if we called it a small e-motorcycle with a top speed of 20 mph instead?

Yadea Trooper 01

The Yadea Trooper 01 is a fun bike if you treat it like a motorcycle, rather than a bicycle. It's best suited for shorter riders, and even then, it's only worth considering if you don't mind relying mostly on its throttle. The pedaling experience is very limited and is mostly intended to help take some of the workload off the motor rather than provide any meaningful user input.

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